By Roger Paradiso A little over one year ago, the Village was shut down due to the worst pandemic since the 1918 influenza pandemic. I have written about the mom-and-pops in the West Village in this series of articles, published with the support of WestView’s George Capsis. It is hard to believe that all five
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Mount Sinai on Beth Israel: Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead
By Penny Mintz According to Mount Sinai’s Brad Korn, Mount Sinai has been “taking a pause” in its plan to close Beth Israel Hospital. “The pandemic has changed the world,” Korn acknowledged last month at a Community Board 3 Health Committee meeting. But the pandemic, which is unquestionably a world-altering cataclysm, has not ultimately altered
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The Day the Village Stood Still: The COVID Relief Bill 2021
By Roger Paradiso President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act passed in the Senate 51-50. No Republicans voted for the bill in the House or the Senate. So much for the bipartisan support that the president was hoping to get. But what we Americans will get is much-needed COVID relief. “The American Rescue Plan provides $1,400
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As Vaccines are Administered at Rapid Pace, Hope Blooms in the Spring
By Bob Cooley It was precisely 13 months ago (on March 1, 2020) from this publishing date when the first official case of COVID-19 was reported in Manhattan. Just over a year later, the toll has been horrendous: 29.8M cases and 542,000 deaths in the US, with 794,027 cases and 30,564 deaths in NYC. The
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Do Pandemic School Closures Increase Risk of Unreported Child Abuse?
By Kieran Loughney The loud laughs were so unexpected that, for a moment, I could not remember my next line. Playing a put-upon father of a bride-to-be on her wedding day, I pressed on and, to my astonishment, I got more laughs and a standing ovation at the play’s end. As a scrawny, self-conscious 15-year-old,
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Getting Vaccinated in NYC
By Arthur Lambert Odysseus enjoyed a much easier trip than one is faced with when trying to get a vaccine in NYC. The sirens were no challenge compared to the NYC Vaccine Finder website. Odysseus spent a lot of time trying to get home, but nothing like the time one spends on Vaccine Finder trying
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What’s With This Vaccine Rollout?
VACCINE ROLLOUT CONCERNS MUST BE ADDRESSED: City Council Member Mark Levine (left), who is chair of the council’s Health Committee, Dr. Cherisse Berry, of Bellevue Hospital and the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and Anthony Feliciano, director of the Commission for People’s Health Services, spoke about vaccine issues at a Zoom forum on January 19,
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What I Learned Navigating a Community Organization During a Pandemic
By David Siffert I was, until a few weeks ago, president of the Village Independent Democrats. I served from December 13, 2018 through December 10, 2020. During that time, the State Legislature passed election reform, housing reform, and more. The city amended its charter. We elected a new president. And we faced a pandemic. Community
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What I Wanted for Christmas Was a Vaccine
By Roger Paradiso “You’ll know when you get the vaccine, but that also tells you it’s working and that your body is responding,” former FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told CNBC. She was speaking about the two incredible vaccines that have emerged just in time—thanks to a massive mobilization of government and private money, and
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Pandemic Profiles: Who Are the Contact Tracers?
By Drew Davis Now that our newspaper’s founder George Capsis has been infected with COVID-19, the pandemic has hit close to home. He then got a call out of the blue from the NYC Test & Trace Corps, something any New Yorker can expect after a positive test or recent contact with the virus. Contact
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Vaccines: What to Know
By Alec Pruchnicki, MD There is a lot of information about the COVID vaccines coming out in the media, so let’s sort out what’s false, what’s true, what’s missing, and, most importantly, what we should be doing. Be prepared for false information on social media, either from anti-vaxxers who are against almost all vaccines, well-meaning
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From Community to Confinement: An Inside Look at a Senior Home Grappling With the Pandemic
By Jessie Carson Renee did not expect to be spending her 23rd year of retirement coaxing herself and her peers through loneliness, fear, and detachment, but as a writer, activist and retired family therapist she was prepared. Little did she realize, she would end up spending over eight months alone, stuck inside in her independent
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Stress and Abnormal Behavior in Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic
By Dr. Claire Miller As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many families are experiencing high levels of stress trying to manage their personal lives, work responsibilities, and hybrid schooling from the confines of their homes. Children have also experienced increased stress during COVID-19 due to significant lifestyle changes, and some parents are noticing the stress manifesting
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The Retail Fight to Survive COVID-19
By Eric Uhlfelder Michael Stewart, owner of Tavern on Jane, is as community a proprietor can get. His cozy, very friendly restaurant not only makes patrons feel at home, but Stewart sponsors free events for the neighborhood, hosts exhibitions of local artists, contributes to various causes, and his prices are a decade behind those of
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Pandemic: Yet Another Tremor for Foster Care Youth
By Kieran Loughney Tess’s great-grandmother’s boyfriend, Fred, despite Tess’s pleas, smoked in the kitchen. She’d complained to Nonny, the matriarch who was now her caregiver. Fred told her: “I’ll smoke where I want.” Reeking of cigarettes, Tess flopped into the passenger seat, shutting my car door hard, not quite slamming it. Before I spoke, she
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Art Under Plague: Galleries in Greenwich Village During the Pandemic
By Fr Graeme Napier Greenwich Village is known both for its art and for its live music scene. Our article in the October edition of WVN looked at the impact of the pandemic on the live music venues in the Village, reviewing the responses of some twenty of our most notable venues. This article, similarly,
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“Time is on the Side of Change” —RBG
By Penny Mintz With the COVID pandemic still raging, the need for universal health care has became obvious. Your COVID illness is, after all, a threat to me and to everyone else. No one would go without treatment if the federal government were to enact Medicare for All, but that probably won’t happen in my
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Letter from a NYC Ex-Pat in Maine During COVID
By Hannah Reimann The blackberries are late this year because there was no rain for many days in July and August. It’s September 13th and I’ve got four hand-picked pints in my fridge now and a huge handful covering my buckwheat ployes for Sunday breakfast. I’m looking out at the cove 20 feet away from
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Epidemiology: The Science Behind Public Health
Abstracted from “A Scientists View of Almost Everything” By Mark M Green Hoosick Falls is a lovely town in upstate New York near the Vermont border and famous as the home of a remarkable painter: Grandma Moses. As of recently, it is a famous town for the discovery that a chemical associated with the production
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The Day the Village Stood Still: “The Reckoning”
By Roger Paradiso On January 28th President Trump was briefed by Robert O’Brien, his fourth national security advisor, who said, “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency” (referring to the pandemic, from Bob Woodward’s book Rage). As autumn starts to come to the Village, we see more people walking
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New York Spirit! FDNY Honors Erik Bottcher and Crew for Bringing Fortifying Meals During Pandemic Crisis
By Karen Rempel It’s their New York spirit. New Yorkers see tragedy and want to help. Whether it’s in their job description or not. The FDNY Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Station 7 in Chelsea serves Manhattan’s west side, from Canal Street to 62nd Street. During the first months of the pandemic, Station 7’s Emergency
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Artists Collaborate With Seniors in Quarantine Through New Program at Greenwich House
By Celeste Kaufman While restrictions are lifting around the city, seniors are still practicing strict social distancing as one of the populations that are most vulnerable to COVID-19. At the beginning of quarantine, Greenwich House quickly adapted their senior center programming to an Online Learning Center packed with Zoom arts and culture classes, exercise classes,
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The Day the Village Stood Still: (Part 5) The Fog
By Roger Paradiso There was a fog around the Village the past few weeks. It was the fog of war against this virus. I talked to Vittorio, owner of the restaurant on MacDougal Street that bears his name. He said, “It’s so bad here that it’s almost funny,” as a construction truck whizzed by his
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The Neighborhood Network
The Neighbor Network is a volunteer-based non-profit program aimed at diminishing isolation among the lower west side seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers are matched with seniors to have regular calls for friendly conversations, connect older New Yorkers with the resources they need, and build relationships that will bring joy and comfort to seniors and
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To Shake or Not to Shake: The History and the Future of the Handshake
By Anastasia Kaliabakos During my college application process, I had to prepare for a slew of interviews. I remember doing some practice interviews with a “specialist” who told me that one of the most important things that leads to a successful interview is having a good and strong handshake. Therefore, I attempted to achieve the
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Employers Likely to Face a Wave of COVID-19 Class Action Litigation
By Samuel G. Dobre, Esq. and Gregory B. Reilly, Esq. As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to drastically impact the U.S., class action lawsuits have been on the rise. Despite court closures, class action filings have increased and are expected to continue. The risk to companies of class and collective action proceedings has been amplified.
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Coast to Coast Coronavirus Caravan
By Robert Kroll During the past six weeks, my wife and I and our 15-year-old Shih Tzu snaked our way through a virus-laden northwest passage, crossing over a dozen state borders, from California to New York City. We are Brooklynites, who found ourselves sheltering for three months (since March 15th) in the Bay Area of
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Leading Through a Pandemic
By Northwell Health President and CEO Michael J. Dowling On August 25, Skyhorse Publishing will publish what New York Governor Andrew Cuomo calls a “riveting account of the COVID-19 experience” that “captures the essential lessons for how to prepare for likely surges in the months ahead.” As head of a health system that treated more
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Silver Linings
By Christina Raccuia For many of us, this crisis has forced us to change direction. Many of my friends and patients have lost jobs, businesses, investments, and loved ones. Familiar routines are gone, and the security many people felt before was gone in an instant. While there is a great deal of tragedy in the
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The Day the Village Stood Still: The Moratorium and Booty Loot in the PPP
By Roger Paradiso Not long ago, the New York Daily News reported that Governor Cuomo had extended the statewide moratorium on evictions through the end of August, and promised that New Yorkers won’t get booted from their homes or businesses for being unable to pay rent during the coronavirus pandemic. The moratorium, which was set to
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NIGHT LIGHT
By Kieran Loughney Isolation. Lockdown. Seclusion. Words now part of my daily conversation bring me back to a time when these terms had a different context. I return in my mind to a place where another invisible enemy was confronted. A place where there were strict limits on personal freedom and no assurance of a
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New Yorkers Dazzle in Custom Masks
By Karen Rempel | Fashion Editor It’s amazing to me how quickly New Yorkers adapt. Masks seemed so alien at first, and now we do our patented one-second glance to diss someone for not wearing one… As we enter Phase Two, masks are as essential as ever in high-traffic areas and situations where we can’t
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The Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center
Executive Director, Charles Schleien By Hannah Reimann Our new West Village neighbors on Perry Street, Steve and Alexandra Cohen, have made many philanthropic efforts for their communities, especially towards healthcare including the Cohen COVID 19 Response Initiative, Cohen Lyme & Tick Borne Disease Initiative, plus numerous other programs including an arts initiative. They have been
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Covid-19 and the Mental Health Crisis
By Christina Raccuia, MA. ED, LMSW During the three months of dealing with the coronavirus we have had a daily dose of fear, uncertainty, grief, and death—compounded by physical distancing/isolation and economic devastation. These conditions can trigger myriad emotions and it is understandable that most of us are feeling either stressed, anxious, sad and or
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Operation CoviDance: Mia’s Pandemic Mission
There’s Flash Dance. Dirty Dancing. And then there’s CoviDance. By Mia Berman Maybe I’m not as agile as Ginger Rogers. I admit it. I never partnered with Fred Astaire or Baryshnikov. And maybe I didn’t have the moves of Shakira. But what I did have was an idea. When the Covid pandemic hit, I began
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Relief During the Shutdown: Online Delivery Service
By Jennifer Brozost Throughout this pandemic—this time of fear, uncertainty and frustration—I have been scared. Scared of what the future holds, scared of getting sick, and scared to leave my house to get groceries to feed my family. At the start of the shutdown I went to the supermarket and had a complete panic attack
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White Horse Tavern Struggles with Compliance
In response to an inquiry from WestView News about unruly crowds at the White Horse Tavern, owner Eytan Sugarman responds: Hi George, Hope things are going well with you despite all that’s not going well in the world. Regarding White Horse, we were very overrun this weekend and frankly unprepared for the influx of traffic.
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Experiencing Emotions During Covid-19
By Dale Atkins Our lives have been turned upside down by the coronavirus. Emotional responses include fear, sadness, grief, anxiety, anger, loneliness, and worry. Previously unnoticed or ignored feelings that allowed for “normal” life-coping strategies may help us grow and become “comfortable” with what is unfamiliar, uncertain, and scary. Physical confinement can ignite feelings of restriction
